Paradise Burning (28 page)

“
I’m a nerd, Pennington. Not cut out to
play hero. I mean . . .” Mandy fisted her hands beneath her chin.
“I planned Kira’s mission, every detail. We even had infra red.
Nobody was supposed to be near that warehouse. But they knew,
somehow they knew, and she died. That’s the kind of hero I
am.”

“
Mandy . . . Mouse, it’s the spy game.
Bad things happen.”

“
Not on my watch.”

“
Okay, how do you think I felt about
witnessing little children auctioned to the highest bidder?
Lascivious old men, slimy flesh peddlers, fat cat businessmen who
just wanted something extra on the side? I had to sit there, Mouse,
horrified and helpless. About the only good thing I can say is that
I grew up that night. I promised myself I’d be a better person. I
vowed to find a way to tell the kids’ story. And about all the
other children, and the women too. I’d make people
listen.”

Peter sighed. “All foolishness. People will
read my book, make all the right noises, form committees, mount
fund-raising campaigns, and drop it when they find their puny
efforts are simply washed away in the hurricane deluge of the
international slave market.”

Mandy’s eyes flashed, her chin firmed. “We’re
rescuing Nadya.”

“
We are indeed. Our vast contribution
to the war on trafficking. One small step in a hike around the
world.”

“
Yeah,” Mandy muttered glumly, “and by
the time we’ve finished the hike, the whole ghastly system will
have sprung back up behind us.”

“
That’s about it.”

She sipped her coffee, staring blankly past
Peter, sorting random bits of knowledge, searching for . . .
crumbs. “We couldn’t help Jade, but we might have made a bit of
progress with Delilah,” she suggested hopefully.

“
Maybe.”

“
Come on, Peter! How can you finish
your book if you think it’s a lost cause?” Mandy
demanded.

Peter’s usually handsome features morphed
into angles, crags and sunken pits, dimmed by shadows inexplicable
in a sunlit Florida kitchen. “Because I’m driven. Those kids haunt
me, Mouse. I have to write the book. For them. For Jade. And Fawn,
who’ll probably never know love. And Delilah who tries, but may not
be strong enough to break out.”

“
And Kira,” Mandy added, nodding. “And
the endless procession of nameless, faceless women and children who
simply disappear, as if they’d never existed. Who become slaves,
die slaves. And never know anything but the venality of the
underbelly of the world.”

Peter, his author’s eyes wide with
appreciation, offered a lop-sided grin. “Mind if I quote you?”

Mandy returned a fond look. “Silly.”

He reached for the morning newspaper. “So
let’s grab a fast Danish”—he nodded toward a plastic container on
the counter—“and get back to work.”

Mandy swallowed a sigh of relief. For a
moment there she thought she’d lost him. And maybe herself as well.
But the sun was shining and the day was young. Hope lived.

The evening’s partying was over. Karim stood
in the open front door of the renovated cracker shack, basking in
the sound that, nightly, was the sweetest music of the day: the
crunch of the van’s tires on the marl circle in front of the house,
the fading whoosh of tires moving down the long road to the
southeast. Relief flowed through him as he followed the red glow of
the taillights until they rounded a bend and were hidden by the
dense curtain of the jungle which—Allah curse the day He made such
places!—seemed to be closing in. Growing even in the midst of
winter. Creeping closer each day.

As was disaster.

It was nearly twenty-four hours since he’d
seen Nadya with the man and woman at the river. He was
investigating who and what they were himself, for if he called on
the vast resources of the organization behind Misha, the whole
story must be told. And Nadya would be dead.

She should be dead now. That was the level of
discipline expected from a Chief of Security.

He couldn’t do it.

Not yet. How serious was the threat? Perhaps
the couple had simply met Nadya while drifting by on a fishing
expedition.

At sunrise?

Devotees of fishing kept strange hours, that
much he’d learned from American television.

Something had changed hands. A piece of
paper. Not good.

He could demand she tell him, confine her to
the house until she did . . .

A red flag to Yuri and Misha, who would learn
of his failure.

He could beat her. Beatings were expected. He
could say she refused him.

Beat Nadya? Allah forfend. His first blow—if
he could bring himself to strike it—would kill her. The Americans
might miss her, make a great fuss . . .

Ah, such torturous reasoning to arrive back
where he started.

Nadya had betrayed him.

Any contact with the outside was trouble, and
the scene he had witnessed in the clearing was as far from an
accidental social call as it was possible to get.

He, Major Karim Shirazi, had been made a
fool. How long had Nadya been meeting with these people?
Everything—money, the organization, his job, his life—was at stake.
The responsibility was his. And yet . . . when he took this job, he
had not anticipated murder. Killing in a war was one thing. Killing
to protect the lives of Nadya and the other girls was a
possibility. But killing to stay in business. Killing so men could
indulge themselves in the services of the world’s oldest profession
. . . That did not sit well.

Killing to stay out of jail . . .? Could he
do it? Or was that the line he could not cross?

Karim shut the front door, his powerful
bronzed hand white-knuckled around the frame to keep himself from
slamming it off its hinges. His people, the Persians, had given
birth to humanity itself. And here he was, doing what? He would not
name it. His shame was too great.

By the time he came to Nadya’s door rage had
overwhelmed his shame. Rage at himself. At the ease with which he
had been bought. At Misha and his hard-eyed superiors who, if they
knew, would demand more of him than he was willing to give. At
Florida, which was supposed to be beaches, condos and fashionable
living, yet here he was stuck in this . . . this place they called
a cracker shack for no earthly reason he had been able to discover.
Left to molder, drowned in greenery and a river the color of turds.
This was not America. This was hell.

He needed a woman. His woman. She who was the
bait in the trap that kept him here. The weak link. The traitor who
would bring the whole house tumbling down around them.

His woman, the whore.

Whores. All of them whores.

He himself, a whore. Selling his soul for
money.

Nadya was slipping the white caftan over her
head when the door cracked back against the wall. Karim caught a
glimpse of high full breasts, a wispy triangle of lace panty before
the cloud of white descended. She stood straight and proud, staring
back at him as if she were an empress and he a lowly officer of her
guard.

“
No river tonight,” he barked, looking
straight through the cotton as if it weren’t there, the cotton that
enveloped her in a virginal innocence he himself had helped to
destroy.

Sensing his mood, she’d gone very pale. He
could see her struggle to remain cool. To act normal when, clearly,
she was aware he teetered on the brink of madness.

Nadya straightened her shoulders, drew a
breath harsh enough to penetrate the sudden heaviness of the air.
“Why was Tama screaming?” she demanded. “What happened?”

“
No matter.”

“
Yes, it matters!”

Karim ground his teeth, reached behind him to
close the door. Why must she always be difficult? “An overeager
client,” he said, the words fighting their way through the red haze
in his mind while his feet seemed to be mired in foul-smelling
muck. “Tama is foolish. These things happen.”

“
I don’t believe you.” Nadya’s chin, at
a defiant angle, was on a level with his heart.

“
Neechevo
.”
Karim tossed out the Russian expression that covered a myriad
situations. He should kill her now and be done with it. He could
see Misha’s implacable face, hear the order.

Kill? Kill Nadya?
There was no threat great enough to make him do it. He would
die first.

In fact, when he looked at his Nadyenka,
death was the last thing on his mind.

Nadya caught the stark feral gleam in the
dark eyes towering over her. She stepped back. One step. Two. And
came to an abrupt halt against the bed that took up most of her
small room. In her private moments with Karim she had seen desire
in most of its forms from outright lust to surprising tenderness.
She had seen humor, had even indulged in occasional bouts of
intelligent conversation. Only once before had she seen him like
this.

There was no way around him. Or through him.
The room was far too small. He could break her with one hand tied
behind his back. Nadya scrambled onto the bed, coming to a halt on
her knees at the far corner where the headboard met the wall.
Defiantly, she faced him, lower lip protruding, blue eyes blazing.
He could kill her, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for
him.

Kill. Was that what it had come to? she
wondered as her pounding heart threatened to rise up and choke her.
Was this where the nightmare ended? With death the only possible
release for either of them?
No!
She loved life. Somehow she would grasp it, make it hers.
These past few months were an aberration. A horror to be conquered.
Put behind her.

But Karim’s eyes were cruel. Worse than that
other time. She truly could not tell if he was going to rape her or
kill her.

No more time to think. He was upon her. Nadya
bit her tongue as he sent her sprawling face down on the bed, the
caftan up and over her head before she could catch her breath. She
gasped as the narrow elastic on her panties broke, snapping hard
against her thigh. She had never fought him before. From the time
she met him she had been resigned to the fact that Karim Shirazi
was part of her job. She had not given herself, but she had
submitted with some semblance of cool grace. Even that time he had
so violently raped her. And occasionally—when she had needed
someone as badly as he sometimes needed her—there had been moments
of something more.

And he had been generous about her trips to
the river. Allowed her the ritual cleansing of quiet beauty. The
inevitable renewal of dawn.

But now, tonight, she was terrified by the
wild-eyed stranger in her bed.

A shoe thudded to the floor. Face pressed
into the bedspread, Nadya took a shuddering breath. Into the
terrified numbness of her brain, a rational thought intruded. Karim
could kill her without taking off his shoes. If he was undressing .
. .

Nadya turned her head, opened her eyes.
Ah!
Bozhe moi
, she should not
have looked. Always, she tried to avoid looking. He was not a man.
He was her keeper. What they did together was part of their jobs.
He protected her from the excesses of some of the customers. And
from Yuri and Misha, who would also like to sample the wares. But
always she made a conscious effort not to look at Karim too
closely. Not to acknowledge his humanity. Deep down, she might be
grateful he had singled her out, but she refused to look upon him
as a man. As a person with thoughts or feelings. A
conscience.

And yet . . . at this moment, she could not
take her eyes off him. He stood beside the bed, bronze and
beautiful. Fully naked, his erection hard, pulsing with a life of
its own. Head thrown back, eyes closed, fists clenched, as if
willing himself back from the brink of hell. His body was taut,
quivering on a hair trigger. A war was being waged, and Nadya could
not tell which side was winning. If she touched him, took him into
her mouth—as she was now so skilled at doing—would he become the
Karim she knew? Or would he snap her neck?

They seldom called each other by name. It was
too personal.

“
Karim?” Soft. Tentative.
Terrified.

“
Karim . . .?”

Doggie style, he was thinking. Maybe doggie
style would be degrading enough to punish them both. They were
filth, he and the little Russian whore. Scum. Perhaps even the
coupling of animals was too good for them.

No. Not Nadya’s fault. The sin was his own.
And not all the blood of his Russian bosses, or the blood of the
two Americans, or all the water in the muddy brown river could wash
it away.

Karim’s nails cut into the palms of his
hands. His penis ached, oozing the liquid of life into the void
where it would never produce the heirs of his body that made a man
a man. This girl—this beautiful Russian with so much soul—did not
deserve he should use her so.

He opened his eyes, drew a ragged breath,
forced himself to look at the woman lying face down on the bed, one
blue eye, huge with fear, peeking at him over the dented folds of
the bedspread. She was so fair. So dainty, pale, and beautiful.
With her silver blond hair cascading around her, down her back,
over the pillow, onto the floor. She did not deserve to be the
vessel into which he plunged his anguish, purged his soul.

Yet this ethereal nymph was going to destroy
them all. She was the first grain of sand in a storm that would
grow to a roar, collapsing, burying everything in its path.

She was all he had. In spite of everything,
this woman was pure. The only trace of goodness left in a life of
lust, violence, and hate. His salvation lay before him. Only Nadya
could give him peace.